Introduction

This research grew from my professional experience as the viola player and musical director of the Klezmer band Tashbain. In the autumn of 2000 I had reached a point in my career where I found myself desperately wanting to find out more about my instrument and its music. I wanted to read about the great folk viola players of the past and listen to recordings of their performances. I wanted to watch other musicians playing folk music on the viola, to play with them and explore the varied repertoires of European folk music. I wanted to learn new techniques of syncopation and ornamentation, different styles of improvisation and more about the subtleties and nuances of bowing. I wanted to know whether the viola really was a separate musical entity from the violin or whether the two instruments were both manifestations of ‘fiddle’ and merely differentiated by size.

I looked, and found very little. There was no literature and precious few recordings. Of course there are reasons for this, the principle one being that the viola is often used as a supporting or accompanying instrument in ensembles and consequently appears on sleeve notes in very small print. For example the disc Blues for Transylvania by Muzsikás contains five tracks which feature the Romanian folk viola or braci, but this information does not appear in any catalogue or index(1). Similarly the recent reworking of Playford’s Dancing Master by 1651 contains some wonderfully dark and imaginative improvisation on the viola, but very little is made of this in either the sleeve notes or accompanying publicity materials(2). Another difficulty is that literature about the viola may be subsumed under the heading of violin or fiddle. This is often the case in the world of the classical viola, where the instrument usually merits one chapter towards the end in books about the violin, with the notable exception of Maurice Riley’s The History of the Viola, but there are no similar chapters in the literature of folk music(3). Finally folk viola players often play the violin as well and are better known for their virtuosity on the smaller and more recognisable instrument.

However I had come into contact with several other folk viola players performing at folk clubs and festivals, and intuition told me that there were probably many more. (Correctly, as it turned out. By the start of 2002 I had contact details for about thirty players, mainly professional, in England and Scotland, one in Ireland and one in America, plus a few more in Eastern Europe). From this starting point an ethnographic methodology seemed to be the only appropriate way forward, and in particular the methodologies of ethnomusicology, the discipline which embraces social anthropology and music in a marriage of convenience and occasional true passion. Researching music in its social context would not only enable a thorough investigation of contemporary folk viola praxis but would hopefully also reveal interesting social data concerning musicians and audiences, performance and rehearsal rituals. It might even illuminate the relationship between music, history, spirituality and community in one small corner of twenty-first century England.

England? There could be a problem here. Ethnomusicologists have in the past travelled long distances (from America and Europe) to study the music of self-contained, well defined and isolated communities, resulting in classic studies which paint a comprehensive picture of life and music in such societies from a westerner’s point of view (4). Mounting criticism of the power imbalance between researcher and researched inherent in such work, plus criticism of the ‘exoticisation’ of non-western musics by writers such as Kofi Agawu(5) has recently resulted in a proliferation of responses and a subsequent widening of the ethnomusicological field. One such response is the emergence of many ethnomusicologists who are citizens of the countries under consideration, for example an association for Ethnomusicology has just been established in Brazil, the Associaçao Brasileira de Etnomusicologia, which consists of a lively community of both Brazilian and overseas scholars engaged in studying Brazilian musics(6). Another response is the emergence of ‘backyard’ or insider ethnomusicology in the West, taking the lead from Social Anthropology. Nevertheless such studies still tend to focus on well-defined groups or communities, such as the Lubavitcher Hasidim of Crown Heights, New York, who constitute a very clearly demarcated community, differentiated from their neighbours by dress, language, custom, religion, gender roles and family relationships(7). Do folk viola players constitute a similarly well-defined group? This is a research question that has yet to be answered.

Luckily there is also a strand of ethnomusicological enquiry which concentrates on instrumental technique and performance. One pioneering example is John Baily’s study of the Herati Dutar, a lute-like instrument popular in the town of Herat in pre-Taliban Afghanistan(8). Baily considers the morphology of the instrument, its historical development and the physiology of handling and playing it, in addition to detailed descriptions of ornamentation and rhythmic variation. He tells us about the musicians who play it and a little of their performance practice. Further examples are Mark Slobin’s account of four female Klezmer violinists in the USA(9), and Jos Koning’s work with the fiddlers of County Clare in Ireland(10). In addition Slobin offers an elegant analysis of contemporary American musical life in terms of overlapping ‘musicspheres’.

The definition of what constitutes folk music is problematic and has been highly contested over the years(11). Not wishing to engage in this debate, I decided to let the musicians I would meet define themselves. But people’s conceptions of the term folk music do vary widely. For example, for many musicians, folk music includes an element of tradition, an attachment and respect for the past in terms of repertoire or performance stylistics or both. For others there is no such attachment and folk music constitutes a genre of popular music, like nu-metal or rap. At this end of the spectrum are many ex-pop stars and a glance at the folk music charts reveals that this is also where most of the money is earned as such people attract large audiences because they are already famous(12).

Finally the discipline of ethnomusicology requires that the researcher must be musically active within the community under scrutiny, offering a choice of roles to the researcher including those of pupil, visiting musician, colleague or teacher(13). This creates the possibility not only of writing about the results of this enquiry but also of performing them.

The viola is larger and heavier than the violin but smaller than the cello. It is held under the chin, which makes it difficult to play, as it is much too big to fit comfortably within the hand. Its sound is deeper, richer and louder than the violin but it doesn’t penetrate or carry so well when playing with other instruments. Its music is written in an idiosyncratic clef used by no other instrument, and no folk music (apart from some classical arrangements) is published for it. Why do musicians choose to play it at all? What is it about the instrument that makes people persevere in spite of the aches and pains, and that inspires the enthusiasm and love for their instrument which is so apparent amongst viola players?

As a case study I will use the transcripts of interviews with four folk viola players in order to suggest some answers to these questions. The players are very different from each other, although all are women. It is too early in the research project to be able to say whether they form a representative sample of folk viola players or not; rather they have been specifically chosen because of their widely differentiated attitudes to the viola. Three have had some classical music training during childhood and came to folk music as teenagers or students, the other is self-taught. The first three are professional folk musicians, the last an enthusiastic amateur.

The first is Cath James. She is a professional fiddler who plays with a ceilidh band called Roger the Badger. She also teaches folk fiddle at primary schools in Sheffield and North Derbyshire. Her viola was given to her as a present and she describes herself as a ‘viola owner who plays it sometimes’. That ‘sometimes’ is in a regular weekly pub session at Fagan’s in Sheffield, where Cath and her partner meet with a few friends to play music in a relaxed and informal setting. I recorded Cath there on 15 November 2000 and the audience was initially comprised of two old men and two giggling young women who were visitors from Eastern Europe(14). Later on they were joined by a group of half a dozen recent graduates, whom Cath recognised vaguely from her university days. There were three musicians present, Cath, her partner Pete Gibbons who plays the guitar and sings, and another guitarist and singer called Pete Hinchliffe who is well-known both as a solo artist and as a member of the Albion Band. The music they played was a mixture of traditional Irish and English fiddle tunes and popular songs from the 1960s. The following interview took place the next day at Cath’s house in Sheffield(15).

So for Cath the viola is the instrument of choice for playing chords, and it can be quite percussive on its lower strings as well as playing sustained melodic lines or harmonies. She uses it when accompanying a singer, where the violin would be too prominent. The vibrations of the C string are said to be therapeutic!

Click here to hear the viola C string

The next transcript is from an interview with Gina le Faux, at her house in Halifax on 21 November 2000(16). Gina is also a professional musician, self-taught and proud of it. She plays Irish and English folk fiddle in various ceilidh and concert bands and uses the viola on stage as well as the violin, again mainly to accompany her own or someone else’s singing. She also writes and performs her own songs and tunes. She builds and repairs violins, and teaches folk fiddle. She was recorded performing at the Lord Mayor’s Charity Benefit at the Chesterfield Miner’s Welfare Club on 24 February 2001, an annual event hosted by the local Attic Folk Club(17). The venue was a large and busy working men’s club which was packed out with several hundred people in spite of the driving snow outside. Gina performed with a trio consisting of herself, Tom Napper who sang and played the banjo and octave mandolin, and Ciarán Boyle, playing the bodhrán in his instantly recognisable style, tuning each note by pressing his hand on the inside of the drum to provide both a rhythmic and melodic bass-line for each piece. They were the second act on the programme, out of about six.

So for Gina the viola is more emotionally expressive and has more of an individual flavour to the sound than a violin has. Again it is the quality of sound that attracts her. Her comments about life not being all ‘fizzy and top-end’ were echoed by Mark Emmerson of 1651 when he was interviewed at his house in Shropshire on 13 December 2001(18). He had aslo been exploring the way that the sound of the viola can capture and evoke the darker side of things.

Click here to hear a slow air from Scotland, Cae the Taes

Another professional fiddler who uses the viola extensively in her music is Nancy Kerr. She comes from Northumberland and tours constantly as a duo with her husband James Fagan, and as a trio known as Scalene with James and her mother Sandra Kerr. Nancy and James were recorded on 1 December 2000 at the Beehive Folk Club in the village of Harthill, near Sheffield, where they played mainly Northumbrian and Australian tunes(19). The upstairs room of the pub was full with perhaps forty-five people, many of whom performed a ‘floor spot’ during the early part of the evening. James plays the bouzouki and they both sing. Their performance distinctive for its energy and their imaginative arrangements, which result from a combination of careful preparation and spontaneous improvisation. Nancy was interviewed at Roy Bailey’s house in Sheffield, where she had stayed overnight(20). The next extract describes Nancy’s first encounter with the viola as a folk instrument and what drew her to it.

Nancy is the only one of these women who was inspired to play the viola by hearing other people playing it. For her the viola is an extension of the violin, desirable for its deeper and richer sound and percussive potential.

Click here to listen to Romanian style viola accompaniment

The final extract is from a young woman called Mandy (not her real name), an amateur player who is about to go to university. She was interviewed on 14 January 2001(21). She plays a range of tunes including Teze (Christian) and Pagan chants and also likes to improvise on folk themes. She doesn’t play in public very often, though she occasionally gets together with friends who are musicians to raise money for charity or to record themselves.

She goes on to talk about the difference between the violin and the viola:

So here is viola playing as a form of meditation. Alice liked the simplicity of style she achieved on the viola and the quality of its sound. She equated a simple style of violin playing with childishness, perhaps referring to the technical competitiveness sometimes found between fiddlers, but felt no such pressure when playing the viola. She also loved the way she could join in with a session by playing harmony even when she wasn’t familiar with the tune.

Four viola players with four very different ways of thinking about their music and their instruments. Fascination with the sound of the viola emerges as a common theme and it will be interesting to find out whether audiences share this fascination with performers. Another emerging theme is a liking for the dark and moody expressive potential of the instrument, although to conclude it is worth remembering Gina’s final words, ‘It can be jolly’.

Click here to listen to a jolly tune from Cumbria called Bang Up

1. Blues for Transylvania. Muzsikás (1990). Hannibal Records. HNCD 1350. Tracks 2,4,6,8 and 11.
2. Cast a Bell. 1651 (2001). Beautiful Jo Records. BEJOCD-33.
3. For typical examples see David D. Boyden and others, Violin Family, New Grove Musical Instruments Series (London : Macmillan, 1989), or Yehudi Menuhin and William Primrose, Violin and Viola (London: Macdonald, 1976), 171-188. The exception is a splendid book by Maurice W. Riley, The History of the Viola (Ann Arbour, Michigan: Braun-Brumfield, 1980).
4. See for example Steven Feld, Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics and Song in Kaluli Expression (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982) or Michelle Robin Kisliuk, Seize the Dance! BaAka Musical Life and the Ethnography of Performance (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
5. Kofi Agawu, ‘The Invention of African Rhythm’ Journal of the American Musicological Society, 48 (1995) 380-95, (390).
6. Suzel Ana Reily, ‘36th ICTM World Conference’, British Forum for Ethnomusicology Newsletter, 22 (2001), 7-11 (10).
7. Ellen Koskoff, Music in Lubavitcher Life, (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001) 43-71.
8. John Baily, ‘Movement Patterns in Playing the Herati Dutar’, in The Anthropology of the Body, ed. by John Blacking, ASA Monograph 15 (London: Academic Press, 1977) pp. 275-330.
9. Mark Slobin, Fiddler on the Move: Exploring the Klezmer World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
10. Jos. Koning, ‘The Fieldworker as Performer: Fieldwork Objectives and Social Roles in County Clare, Ireland’, Ethnomusicology, 24 (1980), 417-430.
11. For a comprehensive discussion of this see Albert Lancaster Lloyd, Folk Song in England (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1967), pp.17-20.
12. Artists such as Billy Bragg, Peter Gabriel (of Yes), Robert Plant and Jimmy Page (of Led Zeppelin).
13. Koning (1980), pp.422-424.
14. FV/DAT/2000/#1, FV/MD/2000/#1, FV/CD/2000/#1.
15. FV/DAT/2000/#2.
16. FV/DAT/2001/#3.
17. FV/DAT/2000/#7.
18. FV/MD/2001/#19 and FV/MD/2001/#20.
19. FV/DAT/2000/#4 and FV/MD/2001/#5.
20. FV/MD/2001/#5.
21. FV/MD/2001/#6.